The invention relates to a carrier projectile for supporting and successively ejecting a plurality of payloads normally disposed in a central cylindrical portion of the projectile.
In known carrier projectiles of this type, the ejectable payloads (e.g., incendiary bombs, guided missles, mines, or the like) are maintained out of contact with each other by means of spacer plates. After a predetermined flight time of the projectile, an ignition charge, disposed in a container situated rearwardly of the payload-containing cylindrical body is ignited, thereby forcing an associated plunger forwardly to correspondingly propel the successive spaced payloads through the cylindrical body, after which they are suitably liberated from the projectile.
A disadvantage of such known carrier arrangements is that the use of even slightly differing sizes of payloads results in changes in the propulsion load, thereby necessitating the use of different ignition charge capacities and/or configurations. In addition, the use of different-sized payloads within a given projectile has required the use of special retainers to immobilize the projectiles prior to their desired ignition time.
The resultant necessity of virtually custom-altering the carrier projectiles to accommodate different sizes of payloads has proved to be inefficient and expensive.